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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27605866">Spiral Answer</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fashwiing/pseuds/Fashwiing'>Fashwiing</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Macross - All Media Types, マクロス Frontier | Macross Frontier, マクロス7 | Macross 7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bio-Fold Wave generation is Song Energy, Fair warning this is full of Bullshit Science, Fix-it fic, Gen, Probably won’t have any ships, may involve my Tsoukalos-esque Protoculture theories</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 01:41:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,110</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27605866</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fashwiing/pseuds/Fashwiing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I want you to help me find Basara Nekki!” Ranka lets the words tumble from her mouth in a rush, as though she’s embarrassed by the very premise of her plan. Michel spits out his coffee in surprise.</p><p>Ozma, however, is quiet.</p><p>“...Alright, how?”</p><p>—</p><p>Sheryl, slowly wasting away in her comatose state, becomes part of a research project examining the link between Bio-Fold Wave generation and Song Energy. Ranka, tired of a lack of results, concocts her own plan.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Spiral Answer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It begins with a song. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The threads are woven through the universe, constantly shifting and harmonizing with the background radiation of the cosmos. If you listen closely enough, you can even hear the hum in the vacuum of space. It’s like the music of the spheres, or the far-off roar of a billion billion dying stars.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Infinite cosmic noise, harmonizing into a song that sticks in the back of your throat and mind and compels you to speak it aloud. She feels it pull her towards the void like a fish hook in her spine, calling out to some unknown recipient beyond the stars.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sometimes she thinks she can hear the words, but it’s as though she’s listening to a dozen songs at once. </span> <em><span class="s2">Aimo, aimo, neede ruuche, the melody disappears as though absorbed by the darkness. Noina milia, only an echo remains.</span></em></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Ozma?” Ranka asks once, when she’s still young and unaware and so very small. “When you’re quiet, can you hear music?”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Ozma laughs and picks her up, spinning her around as she gleefully shouts.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’ve always got a song stuck in my head!” he laughs. “</span>
  <em>
    <span class="s2">A single rock and roll song, echoing into tomorrow!”</span>
  </em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">—</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“We would like to feature Miss Nome’s condition in a series of research papers focused on the potential relationship between Bio-Fold Wave generation and the concept of “Anima Spiritia,” the doctor says.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Ranka has had to be strong. Sheryl has no-one left except her and the SMS- her family, her Galaxy, Grace, Alto- there’s nobody left to fight for her but them. She cares for Sheryl, regardless of what feelings they might both have had for a man who will probably never return. A dead man. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She stands her ground between her friend- the Fairy Godmother to her Super Dimensional Cinderella- and the men who stand in the doorway to her hospital room.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“No experiments!” She’s adamant and unmoving, hands fisted at her sides. The eyes of her salamander phone look like they might pop out if she squeezes any harder. She knows what happened to her friend when she was a child, what was done to her as she lay dying of the V-Type infection, pulled from the muck of Galaxy’s pollution starving and thin and so so small. She’s read the file that Klan found. She’s seen the photos.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Nothing invasive. Most of our data has already been collected via the SMS’ Fold Network radar recordings of the battle against the captive Vajra. We want to explore the possibility that Miss Nome’s current condition is similar, if not identical to, the state of “Spiritia depletion” brought on by exposure to the Protodeviln.” The doctor pauses, seeming to take into account Ranka’s age and the possibility that she might not know her history. “If you aren’t aware of the concept, Spiritia depletion is-“</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“My brother plays in a Fire Bomber cover band! I know what Spiritia and Song Energy are!” the doctor looks taken-aback by her anger. “Are you saying that she depleted her own Spiritia by singing with me?”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Precisely,” the doctor confirms. “What was originally thought to be the ability to generate Spiritia on a measurable scale, referred to as “Anima Spiritia”, seems to be a rudimentary understanding of Bio-Fold Wave generation. The Protodeviln, a species native to Fold Subspace, could not survive outside it without a steady source of Fold waves- their term for which was ‘Spiritia’.” He pauses, as if choosing his words carefully. “We are trying to postulate and prove, among other things, that their defeat at the hands of Sound Force during the Macross 7 Incident was a result of their learning how to access the Bio-Fold Wave generating capabilities of the Protoculture bio-weapons that they possessed in order to exist outside of Fold Subspace- ergo, rendering their need to consume Spiritia from humans a moot point.”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Ranka catches on quickly. Everyone knows the story of how Basara Nekki was rendered comatose by the Protodeviln named Sivil until his Spiritia was replenished with Song Energy. There were TV dramas made about it, and even a movie. Ranka had been in talks to play Mylene Jenius in a new production immediately following her debut as Mao Nome, but the film had been scrapped due to the heightened Vajra threat. That seemed so long ago now, and so inconsequential. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You want to play her music... and see if it wakes her up?” She tries not to let hope seep into her voice. “You want to replenish her Spiritia with recorded Sound Energy to see if it’s the same thing as Bio-Fold Waves?”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“We don’t have any expectations of curing her current comatose state,” the doctor is quick to correct, “but we want to play music for her and monitor her brain wave activity and vital responses, yes.”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">There’s a long moment as Ranka thinks. She’s been told the prognosis more than once. Nobody expects Sheryl to wake up. She had done too much, driven herself too far, given too much of herself up in the quest to save everything she had left.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Her clenched fists relax. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Her phone squeaks as her grip slackens and its little eyes can sink back into its head.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“She loves Fire Bomber,” she finally says. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">—</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">A billion voices scream out across the Fold. He can hear them from his little corner of space, and he stops picking at a peeling bit of lacquer on his guitar as the song of pain and heartache and longing sticks in his throat and compels him to sing it aloud. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He thinks, maybe, he can hear two voices rise above the rest. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">“</span><em><span class="s2">Those are the wings of the Valkyrie</span></em><span class="s1">,” he hums. The melody comes to him slowly, and he picks it out on his fraying guitar strings.</span> <span class="s1">The threads of Space Whale baleen echo their music into the darkness, mingling with the purple-tinged belt of stars that is the closest arm of the Milky Way. It stretches across the night sky like a rainbow bridge, all-encompassing and entreating him to sing along.</span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“</span>
  <em>
    <span class="s2">Shrouded in an armor of light, soaring across the sky, is the Valkyrie on the wings of goodbye.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">—</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">It’s encouraging that, when Ranka sings, she can see small spikes of brainwave activity on the monitor attached to Sheryl’s medical pod. She’s learned over the months that if she </span> <span class="s2">feels</span> <span class="s1">, rather than just listens to the music played for her friend, she can feel a small thrill of Bio-Fold feedback. She learns that when she focuses her desires into songs and melodies, she can make those same small spikes appear too. The doctors involved in the research project told her that modern sound recordings could record and transmit Bio-Fold Waves, but even the overwhelming power of Basara Nekki’s singing voice, when piping through tinny speakers, only exudes a small fraction of what she’s been told could be felt during live performances. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Over time, Ranka learns how to harness her natural connection to the Fold. She listens at night when the world is quiet, sitting at her window and looking out at the unblemished starry sky full of new constellations and new possibilities, and feels the song of the universe flow through her mind. She can hear the harmony of everything, singing along in the blackness of space, and listens for the individual threads of other Fold-sensitive life. It’s a strange departure from her senses, as though she’s seeing a whole new universe that’s always existed just slightly off-time with human perception. It feels empty without the once ever-present song of the Vajra she had been so attuned to without realizing.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She writes new songs, holds new live concerts, and lets the song of the universe flow through her mind and her pen as she brings to life the echoing melodies of far-off places and people and life. She holds vigil next to her friend, her Fairy Godmother, and sings her new songs. She watches the little blips on Sheryl’s monitor with stars in her eyes, trying through trial and error to find ways to make the responses she produces in her friend stronger. She waits for an answer, a suggestion, anything. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The words never come.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">In the silence, she begins to think of a plan.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">—</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Ozma, I need your help.” He looks up from his coffee at his little sister’s words, surprised by the resolution in her voice. Michel and Luca sit nearby, the former’s ears perking up at her tone as he tries not to eavesdrop.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What do you need?” His answer is immediate, ready and willing to help the girl he loves so much with whatever problem she has. Ranka’s face is stony and hard-set, but worry peeks through her resolution to show on her face. She squeezes her phone until is squeaks, her eyes suddenly downcast as though she’s second-guessing her words. “You can ask me anything, you know.”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I want you to help me find Basara Nekki!” Ranka lets the words tumble from her mouth in a rush, as though she’s embarrassed by the very premise of her plan. Michel spits out his coffee in surprise.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Ozma, however, is quiet.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“...Alright, how?” Ranka’s face lights up as he agrees, the smile cautiously hopeful. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“The doctors studying Sheryl think that Sound Energy and Bio-Fold Waves are the same thing!” she exclaims. “Is there a way to track spikes in the Fold network?” This time Luca, who had been eavesdropping with much more discretion, perks up. Suddenly, her seemingly silly idea has become the focus of the entirety of Skull Squadron.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“There is! If I can tune the network scanners to detect a specific frequency, I can filter out the background noise of travel and communications networks and only focus on Bio-Fold Wave signatures!” The small boy, in the months since their last battle, has grown a little taller. Not by much, but enough that he’s begun to look much less out of place with his squadmates.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“But how do we find a sample of Basara’s Bio-Fold Wave signature?” Michel asks. In the space of a moment he’s up from his table and across the room, spinning a chair around to sit in it backwards and lean against the back of it with interest in his eyes. Luca follows quickly afterwards, their coffee forgotten at their old table as the new topic of conversation pulls them in.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Can we use recordings? Sound Energy gets captured on recordings, can you extrapolate from that data?” Ozma suggests. Ranka pulls out a chair next to him and sits as well, happy that her friends and family have taken so much interest in a plan she thought would surely be brushed off as silly.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“If Sound Energy and Bio-Fold Waves are the same thing, we can use the data from the original Sound Force project! I’ll have to figure out how the readings correspond from one to the other, but once I do I could probably track anyone involved! Even the Jamming Birds!” Luca stops suddenly, his face falling flat as he comes to a realization.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What’s wrong?” Ranka asks, immediately noticing the change in his demeanor. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Dr. Chiba, the NUNS officer in charge of the program...” Luca trails off, unsure of how to phrase his next words.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“He died a few years back,” Ozma finishes for him, coming to the same conclusion immediately. “We’d have to go through official channels to get access to his research, and we all know how big of a mess NUNS is right now.”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s true, and they all know it. After the assassination of President Glass the entire power structure had essentially fallen apart, dividing along party and departmental lines as elections and grandstanding began in earnest in an attempt by almost every member of the political and military elite to seize control of the most powerful seat in the galaxy. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“...What about Miss Cathy?” Ranka suggests after a moment, looking up at her brother with faux innocence in her eyes. You would think butter couldn’t melt in the girl’s mouth, she had turned on so much charm. Ozma sputters at the suggestion, and again when Michel fixes him with a knowing look. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’m not gonna-“ he tries to protest. “That’s not-“</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I bet she’d do it if you-“ Michel starts, a shit-eating grin spreading across his face. Ozma claps his hands over Ranka’s ears and she jumps in surprise.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Watch what you say around my sweet innocent little sister!” she can hear him say, quite clearly in fact.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Ozma, you bribe her with sex literally all the time,” she deadpans. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Ozma wails theatrically as he buries his face in his arms against the table, everyone around him erupting into laughter.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>At this time there’s a second chapter to this in the works, but it isn’t much of one yet and idk if it ever will be. If I do end up finishing this up someday it’ll be quite gradually.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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